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Monday, November 18, 2013

Cut the Crap

“What is
drama, after all, but life with the dull bits cut out.” —Alfred Hitchcock.

Sometimes the best
thing you can do for your writing is cut.This isn't because less is more, though there
is a lot to be said for concise writing, especially when you want a scene or a
moment to have impact.I often find
myself muddling through mundane routines in my characters' lives.I end up writing stage directions, which I
doubt would be interesting to a reader, because they bore me.There is nothing worse for a project than
getting bored with your own writing.I
usually fall into this wandering because I'm trying to figure out what happens
next, or, if I know that already, what happens in the meantime.I end up following the characters around,
hoping they’ll do something worthwhile.

Here's an example.My
protagonist runs into a woman he knows downtown.She's attractive.They duck into a diner, have a short
conversation pertaining to the story.From there, she gives him a lift back to his apartment.They pull up in front of his building, she
turns off the car, he says something maybe, she says something, someone says
something about being hungry, I don't know, but they end up in his
apartment.Story continues.The important and interesting
sections of this narrative thread are the run in, the conversation, and the two
of them in that apartment, because, remember, she is attractive. Everything else is unnecessary. Unless I can extend to those connective beats
some kind of character insight or color, they just weigh the
story down.

These moments can also be damn hard to write.As you can probably tell from my little
sketch, I never figured out what the hell the two of them were supposed to say
to each other.I didn't know how to get
them upstairs without forcing dialog down their throats, so I cut it out.From the diner, I spare a few words on the
car and the music this woman listens to (a bit color), and then like that,
they're in the apartment.

This jump hopefully excites the reader, because the story is progressing
(in this case towards a potentially heated situation).Also, this gives them a chance to read into
what's not on the page and prescribe that in-between content based on what they
already know about the characters.In a
small way, they get to participate in the story, and that is gratifying.We are all used to doing
this, and a lot, because we all more or less grew up watching television and
movies.If you watched a movie that kept
the camera glued to its characters as they maneuvered from point A to B down
every hallway, pausing to close every door behind them, etc, you would be bored
to tears.

It is critically important as a writer to constantly think
about how much of the scene you are writing needs to be there.Can you justify what is on the page?What does it do for your story, and would
anyone miss it if you took it out?Asking yourself these questions forces you to recognize, and hopefully
create, the pieces of your story that matter, and helps you limber up your
writing by brushing aside all those fragments that do not.